Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to increase the study of foreign languages in schools.

The Government recognises the importance of providing pupils with the opportunity to take a core set of academic subjects, including modern languages. Learning a foreign language provides an opening to other cultures; fosters pupils’ curiosity; deepens their understanding of the world; and equips pupils to study and work in other countries.

Evidence suggests that children can better be taught the sounds of new languages when they are younger. That is why the Government introduced a new foreign language for Key Stage 2 as part of the new National Curriculum, which came into force in September 2014.

The Government took action in 2010 to halt the decline in the number of school children taking language GCSEs by introducing the English Baccalaureate (EBacc), which requires secondary school pupils to take GCSEs in English, maths, science (including computer science), a language and history or geography. This has had a positive effect on the take up of languages in schools since introduced in 2010.

The Government published a response to the consultation on proposals to implement the EBacc on 19 July 2017. It set out that 75% of Year 10 pupils in state funded mainstream schools will start to study GCSEs in the EBacc combination of subjects by September 2022. This is as an important step to reaching 90% of Year 10 pupils studying GCSEs in the EBacc combination of subjects by 2025.